Elevation of Mana Chapter 32 Jointery

It was a real disappointment that my attempt at agriculture had been brushed off, but I wasn't going to let that keep me down.  I hoped that people came to see the benefit in time, and until they did, well plants grew, so there was no big issue letting my garden slowly expand.  It was something I could do on the side, cleaning things up every now and then until they realized that I'd slowly made a bounty of food for harvest.

Now though I was going to try my hand at woodworking.  This would be a real challenge, because it was something I'd never really done in my previous life.  I'd be working off of half attempts to make basic things in my memories, and a few videos I'd seen on or old T.V. shows.  I might not have much, but I could at least work on that.

Wood was an odd material in this world, heavily used for some purposes, but very ignored for others.

For smaller objects like tool handles and a few smaller tools and utensils it was the go to, but for construction, at least in our village, it was largely ignored by the adults.  When you could have someone grow you a house in an afternoon you didn't really need to do complex woodworking.  Anything more than the little makeshift huts we boys had built was pretty much non-existent.

For that reason some skills were far more advanced than others among my tribe.  Carving was a pastime that a lot of men got involved in, and some of them were absolutely amazing at the small details they could transfer over to things like their tool handles and toys they made.  As far as joints went though, there was almost nothing other than simple pins in holes.  Everything that needed to stay was either tied in place, or made some other way.

So I got myself some of my dried logs, and began what seemed to me to be a simple project to start with.  I had in the past aimed too high with my attempts at new things, and there was no reason for me to do so here, aim small, win small, lose small.

“What are you making son?”  My father asked as I began to set my wood out.

“A basket of wood,” I answered, the description was close enough.

First thing was first, making boards.  These I hewed, because it was the easiest way.  Splitting the logs magically with something like a chisel shaped blade of force and slicing until I got the sizes and pieces I needed.  Blades were far, far easier than making a saw out of force, something I'd tried once.  The teeth were the hard part, and keeping them in the right shape, which I had to figure out through trial and error, while it was moving was a real pain.

After carefully shaving the planks down to the sizes that I wanted using little more than the power of my mind I began to make a template.  I remembered this from one of the trips my school on Earth had taken to one of the colonial age towns.  The carpenter there had shown us how we could make dovetails, and the simple shape was easy to transfer over to a bit of wood.  I was pretty sure I could do them with just a chisel too, which was a bonus.

My father came over to watch me work, but kept quiet.  He liked to see things as they were made, and looked over some of my boards.  He even gently ran his hands over the surface of one while smiling, seemingly happy with the shape it'd taken before returning it to the others.

With immense care I sliced away material, cutting here and there to leave the dovetail on the first pair of boards.  By the time I finished up I discovered that I'd been a bit too careful and restrictive in my cutting, and the joint was so tight that it wouldn't go together properly.  That wasn't too big a deal, as removing material was always easier than adding, so I just reworked it until it fit with a comfortable snugness.

Once I'd finished with all four of my boards I began to put them together.  At which point I discovered that I'd done my joints backwards on one of the four.  With a small amount of irritation I remade that board, no big deal, and got it all into the nice mostly rectangular shape.

I picked it up, looking at all the sides.  It fit together, but I'd have to glue them together or something for long usage, along with some cleanup here and there.  Then I looked through the center... through the center.

“Looks good, how are you putting the bottom in?”  Dad asked innocently.

As far as I knew the Elven language lacked the sort of breadth and depth of obscenities available in English.  There were some naughty words, sure, but not the kind of massive cursing that I could've achieved in my first native tongue.  That was something I needed to work on.

I felt my right eye begin to twitch as I took it apart again.  There was no need to get too complicated here, so I just made a small magic chisel and caved out a groove a small board could fit into, then another piece of wood to size to fit.

“Need something to hold it all in place, like you do with your tools,” I said to dad, looking up.

My father made a lot of tools, and even managed to summon from nothing a sort of glue-like substance.  The texture was more like sap, and it was something I personally couldn't replicate no matter how hard I tried.  I'd put trying to figure out why he could do that kind of thing on the back-burner for now, but it still grated sometimes.

“I can make you some,” he offered.

“Mind helping me finish it?”  I asked instead.

My joints were... rough, in places a bit too lose, in others a bit too tight.  The boards themselves were in dire need of sanding and if possible some kind of finish.

Dad smiled, like all dads tended to smile when asked to help with a project like this.  I wondered briefly if I'd gotten myself into more trouble than I'd wanted, but with the look on his face I just couldn't back out now.  He was happy as he began to look it over again.

“Of course Elian, first let's get some reeds and smooth it out, then we can do the wood like a tool handle to make it last longer.  I think I have everything we'll need already.”

I was launched into his explanations as it was sanded, the fit checked and altered ever so slightly, and then something that made me clench, even if I'd seen him do it a hundred times.

Dad's favorite way to finish off any wood project, of which he mostly made tools, was to burn the outside ever so slightly over a hot fire.  He had me hold it while he watched until the outside of the outside of the wood began to get hot and burn, just slightly, just letting the grain darken.  Water was then applied, and another round of sanding.

I'd have said that the glue came last, but after letting it sit overnight I was asked to sand the thing once more in the morning, right after I woke up.  That was unexpected, but if I was telling the truth, he was  right, some of the glue had dried on the outside and been a bit crusty on the edges.

At the end, I had a box, not a  large box, barely bigger than a cigar box, and without a lid, but a box.  Dad eventually put it down in front of me, smiling.

“I like it, and there's more you could do with it if you wanted.  Where did you see that shape before?”  He asked.

“Hmm?  It's just something I thought would fit, wanted to try it out.  I think there might be better ways to do it, but I'm not sure.”

He thought on that for awhile.  “There might be, but that works.  If you could make more big pieces of dry wood, then we could do some really good things with it, but getting dry wood slats like that isn't easy.”  He'd effectively found one of the reasons that this hadn't been put forward yet.  “Also need a really sharp chisel... hmm, that might be a problem to those without a light like you...”

“I'm sure you could make one,” I tried to encourage, but he was right, metal might be the best way to go for those.

“Do you mind if I borrow this to show to some of the others?  I think they'll want to try something out too,” dad finally asked.

“Of course not,” I said, smiling, this was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to encourage.